26 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



I shall speak further on — a single place in the entire mass of picture 

 manuscripts belonging- to the pre-Spanish time where the successive 

 years are enumerated with their initial days. This fact alone should 

 make us suspicious in regard to the assertions of Duran and Cristobal 

 del Castillo. For Cipactli, the first day of the tonalamatl, and the 

 following signs are generally used in the manuscripts somewhat as are 

 our numerals 1 to 20. Bishop Landa also states directly of the Maya 

 calendar, that the tirst day of the year and the first day of the tonala- 

 matl had absolutely nothing to do with each other. If we take into 

 consideration the confusion, which, as 1 have explained above, pre- 

 vailed in Mexico in regard to the beginning of the year, we can not 

 avoid the impression that the opening days of the year were also dis- 

 placed in the course of time, and thus could not always keep the same 

 names. If we once admit this, then the fact that it became necessary 

 to call the successive 3^ears by the names of the days Acatl, Tecpatl, 

 Calli, Tochtli, acquires increased meaning. We can not well refuse 

 to assume that at the time when and in the place where it tirst 

 occurred to the learned that only four of the twenty signs for the 

 days fall upon tho initial days of the years, it was just these very days, 

 Acatl, Tecpatl, Calli, Tochtli, with which the year then and in that 

 place began, or at least, that these days, for whatsoever reasons, then 

 and in that place were chosen for the opening days of the year. I 

 find an indirect proof that this was indeed the case in the fact that 

 ancient accounts from two remote and widely separated localities, from 

 Meztitlan, on the boundaries of Huaxteca, and from Nicaragua, make 

 the series of twenty day signs begin with Acatl. In the Dresden 

 manuscript the years do not begin with Kan, Muluc, Ix, Cauac, the 

 fourth, ninth, fourteenth, and nineteenth day signs, with which, at 

 a later period, to judge from Landa and the books of Chilan Balam, 

 the Mayas began their years, but with Been, Ezanab, Akbal, and 

 Lamat, that is, the thirteenth, eighteenth, third, and eighth signs, 

 which answer to the Mexican Acatl, Tecpatl, Calli, Tochtli. 



In a paper presented before the International Americanist Congress 

 at Berlin E. Forstemann, to whom we owe so many discoveries, espe- 

 cially in regard to the mathematics of the Dresden manuscript, furnished 

 proof that the many high numbers which are to be found, particularly in 

 the second part of the Dresden maimscript, take for granted that the day 

 4 Ahau (4 XX), the eighth of the month Cumku (the last of the eighteen 

 annual festivals), is to be regarded as a zero mark, inasmuch as, if we 

 count on from this da}" for the number of days which the figure stand- 

 ing above gives us, we obtain a different date, which — again exactly 

 indicated by numeral and sign and statement of what day of which 

 month — is noted beside it. Now Mr F<)rstemann saw very plainly that 

 this zero mark, 4 Ahau, 8 Cumku, with which the other dates in the 

 manuscript, with a very few exceptions, agree, clearly can not be 



